The Second Education of Joshua Gottlieb
by Frankenpunk
Summary: Josh's parents fobade him to go Hogwarts, now his powers are out of controll. What will he do?
1. Default Chapter

These characters are mine, but the world is JK's, as is the letter in this chapter. Also, I'm not sure how many Tudor houses there are in Golders Green. I haven't been there in years.  
  
Second Education  
  
By  
  
Frankenpunk.  
  
Josh and Sally walked into the old Tudor styled house in Golders Green. It had been years since he crossed the threshold of his childhood home. Sally looked around with avid curiosity.   
  
"So this is where you grew up, huh?"   
  
"Yes, it is. My mother would sit us here in the living room and read us Curious George when we were young."  
  
"She was an amazing woman."  
  
"Yes, she was." A silence passed between them. Sally looked at her him as if he was a lonely lost puppy.  
  
"Oh, Josh, I'm so sorry." She approached her husband and hugged him close. "I know how much she meant to you."  
  
"She passed quietly at least."  
  
"Yeah, let's, uh, take a look around. My brother was telling me he wanted me to look through the stuff in the attic before he threw it all out, just in case I wanted something."  
  
"Should I wait here?"  
  
"You can come if you like."  
  
"OK."  
  
On the landing of the second floor, was a small door that looked much like a broom closet. Josh pulled out a small key which fit into the keyhole shaped lock. Behind the door was a thin staircase, with perfect wallpaper on each side. The moment Josh stepped into the stairwell, the wallpaper started to bleed with water, by the time Sally and he reached the 3rd step, damp marks appeared all along the walls. Some of the wallpaper started to peel.  
  
"That's funny," Said Josh. "It was dry when I opened the door."  
  
"Must be the plumbing," said Sally.  
  
"Mum must have really let this place to go pot."  
  
"Well, she wasn't really able to get around toward the end, right?"  
  
"Yeah, that's why we had to put her in a home. Awfully glad we were able to keep this place."  
  
"Me too," she grinned at him playfully. "It's so romantic."  
  
When they reached the top of the stairs, a few sheets of wallpaper had fallen due to the dampness. Sally and Josh stepped on the landing of the attic and never were the wiser of it. The attic was one big room. Nearest to them were chests, cardboard boxes, and a collection of large Tupperware crates. One, filled with cutlery, was labeled "Passover 1940." Another had "Purim costumes" sketched in indelible marker. A smaller one even had one Hebrew word in calligraphy on its side. It was full of tattered old prayer books, Hagadot, and Chumashim. Behind these were pieces of dusty old furniture. One in particular was a dresser with a large oval mirror.  
  
"Look at this!" Sally was overjoyed at the sight of it. "It's beautiful. Can we take this? I mean a little varnish and some dusting and it's as good as new."  
  
"I'm sure we can arrange it. I don't think Peter would mind. He's already cleaned out anything he's wanted, and this dresser certainly isn't his style. Let's see if there's anything in the drawers."  
  
There were three small drawers in the first row. Each revealed mostly sawdust, and some spare wallpaper pieces. The second drawer held some old sweaters, which reeked of moth balls. The third was full of old letters, bills, and old insurance polices. Josh began to rummage through the various bits of paper. One in particular caught his eye. It was addressed to him. It was yellow and stained with age. The seal, which had been broken, was a large piece of wax with a rather embroidered "H" stamped into it. Opening it carefully, he removed a piece of parchment, perfect, as if time could do no damage to it. Upon unfolding it, he stared at the calligraphy in bewilderment. The first few lines spoke of an Albus Dumbledore, headmaster; Order of Merlin, First Class; Grand Mugwump and other seemingly lofty titles.  
  
"Dear Mr. Gottlieb," it read. "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted..." 


	2. Drink my levitating cuppa

"What the hell is this?" Josh said aloud.  
  
"I don't know, never heard of a Hogwarts school, have you?" Sally replied.  
  
"Must be some kind of joke, I never got accepted into any specialty schools, 'School of witchcraft and Wizardry?'"  
  
"What do you suppose they teach there? And if it was a joke, why did they keep the letter?"  
  
"Dad probably wanted to sue them for fraud or something, but then again, it's in this old drawer instead of amongst his old law papers. Very weird."  
  
"Maybe it was from a friend."  
  
"But none of my friends ever went to that school. I doubt if any of them played a joke like this on dad."  
  
"Very weird."  
  
"Heh, look at this name, Ablus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, that's a strange one, eh?" Josh said hold the letter closer to Sally  
  
"Grand Mugwump?"  
  
"Yes, and a member of the Wizengot, whatever that is. Look at this! There's a list of books, equipment and everything. Check this out, I could've brought my choice of a owl, cat or toad."  
  
"Must be a wild school if they allow owls running all over the place."  
  
"Yeah, what boarding school accepts pets?"  
  
"Too weird, but the dresser is nice. Could we take that as a wedding present from your dad?"  
  
"I don't see why not. Besides I want to keep this letter. There's a reason why this is here. My parents may have been packrats, but, for packrats, they were very organized. See anything else you like, dear?"  
  
"Nope, I guess we'll have to arrange for it's disposal."  
  
"I guess so."  
  
They made their way back to the stairs to the attack.  
  
"Oh my!" Sally said.  
  
"The wallpaper! It's all pealed off! How did it peal off so fast?"  
  
"These walls are soaked."  
  
"Must be a broken pipe somewhere. I'll call a plumber."  
  
It took a good half hour for the plumber to finally arrive. They showed him in and escorted him to the door to the attic. Upon opening it, Sally and Josh's jaws drop. The plumber just stood there.  
  
"Looks Ok to me," he said. And it did. The wallpaper had returned to its original state and was dry as desert.  
  
"But that's impossible," said Josh. "Why only 5 minutes ago all the wallpaper was in heaps along the stairs and the whole wall was wet, I mean soaked, straight through." The plumber walked up the stairs and inspected the wallpaper.  
  
"There's no water damage here, sir. This paper's been glued pretty well. It would take quite a storm to wash both sides of the stairs out."  
  
"I see," said Josh.  
  
"That'll be forty quid for the visit, sir."  
  
"Right," he said, looking puzzled.  
  
* * *  
  
The rest of that week Josh and Sally held Shiva at his mother's house. Nothing as strange as that ever occurred while John was in his first seven days of mourning. He returned to work the following week rather nervous, wondering if he was going to handle the stress well or just turn into a blob of blubbering tears of grief. The first person to greet him was his boss, a certain Mr. Connoley, who for the most part respected Josh until lately. Josh could tell. They weren't going out to lunch as much as they used to, nor had tea together. Josh realized this maybe because Mr. Connoley may have seen Josh's latest proposals as a bit more progressive than usual. Now, there was a different story about Josh's dealings with potential bank clients.  
  
"Gottlieb," he said, "My God, man, why haven't you shaved."  
  
"I'm sorry, sir, my mother died, sir, it's part of the tradition of mourning."  
  
"I see, right. Anyway, I've gone over the Chelsea deal and all I've got to say is you can't be serious, man. I mean, 1.5 percent. It's highway robbery!"  
  
"Well, the whole part of that loan plan was to make our bank more inviting to investors by underselling the competition with a vastly lower rate."  
  
"Oh really, didn't they teach you anything in finance school? It doesn't work! The only way to make profit on that is to double our rate of new investment and things never go like that. Loans are not television sets. They're not mass-produced. The bank would hardly have the infrastructure to support such investment expansion. Now you get on the phone to those Chelsea people right away and fix those figures! And be warned, any more attempts to undersell this bank and you'll find yourself out with the dogs, understand?"  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"Good, good luck."  
  
"Thank you, sir." Mr. Connoley walked away ferociously shaking his head as Josh watched him feeling rather depressed. A cup of coffee would do me good today, he thought, and headed for the break-room.   
  
With no one there, Josh felt the stress compounding in his head. How was he going to explain this to client? He was bound to loose them, if they found out that the only reason they were investing in the first place had been dismissed. I defiantly need coffee, he thought again leaning his hands on a counter-top.  
  
"Oh, thank you," he said as he grabbed the cup that hovered by his right shoulder. Hovered? He turned around. There was still no one there. He walked over to the coffee machine. The power light was off. There was no coffee in the pot, in fact it looked quite clean and unused. There was no filter, no grinds, the water chamber was empty and dry. What the hell? He thought, how did this get here? Right, must some sort of mild schizophrenia due to stress of course.  
  
"I'll just leave you here," he said putting the cup very gingerly on the counter in front of him. He walked briskly out of the break-room and headed for his cubicle. The cup followed him, hovering at chest height a foot behind him. 


	3. Kidnapped!

"Say, Josh." He turned around and noticed Charlie staring at him strangely. He also noticed the cup. It was floating two feet away from him in mid-air. He rushed towards it making as if he was going to give a hearty greeting to his friend, grabing the cup out of the air.  
  
"What's with the magic tricks?" Charlie said curiously.  
  
"Tricks? Oh, nothing just some sort prank. Must be some of the boys making fun of my proposal. The one that is apparantly going to get me fired."  
  
"That's pretty neat, a floating cup. I'll have to ask the guys how they did that. Funny, I don't see any of them around." Josh looked around. Indeed there was no one who could possibly have a coffee cup follow him in mid-air.  
  
"Heh, yes, funny, very funny, heh."  
  
"Listen, I just want to tell you not to worry. We just fiddle around with the numbers a bit and we'll come up with something that the client will like and you won't get fired. I mean come on, no one could really question your record. I mean you brought in some very profitable loans"  
  
"That was last year."  
  
"Oh yeah, ah well, never mind, just don't sweat it. We'll find a way to get them to bite. I got a lot of confidence in ya!"  
  
"Great! Thanks." He smiled breifly and clutching the miscreant cup straight out in front of him, he took off at a brisk pace. He got to his desk and the cup upon being placed there, immediately began to float about a foot above the surface. He tried to anchor it somehow to the desk, trying paper weights and a second cup on top.   
  
"Oh fine," he said to it, "be that way."  
  
As he began to touch his computer, the screen flickered. He looked at the numbers in many different formulations and he found himself between the same rock and hard place. My rock is my client, he thought, my bank is my hard place. It soon became such that the screen would not stop flickering, the keys would not stop typing on their own. At one point even the lights on the whole floor wouldn't even stay on.  
  
Fed up he decided to walk outside. As he descended in the elevator, the power again went out. Oh, brother, he thought, my day could not get any worse. He pondered in the dark of the small elevator what his next job would be like. No more banks, he thought. Maybe markets? Mutual funds? That takes tests; not just test but tests; four of them, no I don't have time for that. Maybe take Sally on an extended vacation? No, she wants to have a baby, how can I have a baby when I don't even have a job? Well I haven't lost it yet. The power came back on.  
  
He stepped out into the lobby and pulled a cigarette from his pocket. If I have a baby, I can't smoke, must stop smoking! He lit it and walked down the street. He decided he would get a paper; something to take his mind off of the daunting task of loans. It was a nice sunny day, the air was fresh and the breezes light. When he got to the stand he stared at the headlines a long while thinking of those magic numbers; the magic numbers that would melt the rock and soften the hard place. He saw a raindrop hit the paper and noticed it got very dark very quickly. Thunder was heard, then wind, then leaves, then rain. Josh looked up. How? He wondered. Where did the clouds come from? The wind began to pick up speed and began blowing the papers down the street.  
  
"Better grab one before they all blow 'way, gov'nor!" The merchant said. The lamppost next to the kiosk began to sway.  
  
"Good lord, where'd this come from?" Josh looked up at the lamppost it wasn't just swaying, it was thrashing. From it's footing in the ground, it bent over and crashed three cars, made a huge hole in the street and broke several windows of the building directly behind it. "You best run for it!" He yelled and began to make his way back to the office. He turned around. It looked like the sidewalk was using the lamppost as a club. He saw the kiosk vendor jump out of his store just as the lamppost finally crashed down upon it. He watched as the lamppost turned the sidewalk to mincemeat. An arm reached around his neck, he felt a slight jab in his back. "Don't move," a voice said. He felt a strange sensation around his middle and the sidewalk blurred out of sight. 


End file.
